According to the Centre For Development and Enterprise’s latest report,10.3 million South Africans are actively looking for a job but can’t find one. Smollan’s Household Hope Campaign is addressing the ever-deepening crisis by asking employees to help identify households in their communities in dire need of employment. The retail solutions company was initially going to appoint 250 applicants but the campaign led to the appointment of 418 applicants.
The applicants had to be from a no-income household and had no steady employment for the last six months from the date of application. The applicants had to be over the age of 18 and have completed Grade 10 English as well as be able to speak, read and write English.
“The Household Hope campaign is one example of Smollan’s commitment to creating meaningful employment and growth as well as having a social impact,” says Smollan CEO, David Smollan. He believes that business must change how it functions for it to be successful going forward. “In our vision, our future will not measure the quality of a business for its economic returns but in the resources that it consumes and the impact that it has on the communities in which it operates, “explained Smollan.
He added that Smollan is unusual in that it is one of the few companies, globally, that bring people into the workplace straight out of school. “We’ve seen so many inspiring growth stories. We’ve seen a shelf-packer become a supervisor, a field manager, a regional manager, then running a structure, running a country and now running a region.”
